ARTICLES AND ESSAYS

Why the King James Version?:

From the Common to the
Official Bible of Mormonism
Philip L. Barlow

T H E EXCELLENCE OF THE King James Version of the Bible does not need fresh
documentation. No competent modern reader would question its literary excel-
lence or its historical stature. Yet compared to several newer translations, the
KJV suffocates scriptural understanding. This essay offers a historical per-
spective on how the LDS Church became so attached to a seventeenth-century
translation of the ancient biblical texts.
To gain this perspective, we must distinguish between the sincere justifica-
tions offered by leaders and teachers in recent decades and the several histori-
cal factors that, between 1867 and 1979, transformed the KJV from the
common into the official Mormon Bible. In addition to a natural love of the
beauty and familiarity of KJV language, these factors include the 1867 pub-
lication of Joseph Smith's biblical revision, the nineteenth-century Protestant-
Catholic conflict over governmental authorization of a single version for use
in American public schools, the menace of higher criticism, the advent of new
translations perceived as doctrinally dangerous, a modern popular misunder-
standing of the nature of Joseph Smith's recorded revelations, and the 1979
publication of the LDS edition of the Bible. While examining these influences,
I give special notice to J. Reuben Clark, who by 1956 had appropriated most
previous arguments and in the process made virtually all subsequent Mormon
spokespersons dependent on his logic. So influential was his work that it too
must be considered a crucial factor in the evolving LDS apologetic for the
King James Version.

T H E COMMON INHERITED VERSION

When the Geneva Bible was published in 1560, it made no attempt to

disguise its Protestant origins: its prefatory dedication to Queen Elizabeth
PHILIP BARLOW teaches in the Department of Religious and Classical Studies at the
University of Rochester, Rochester, New York. He received his doctorate in American Reli-
gious History in 1988 from Harvard University.
 20 DIALOGUE: A JOURNAL OF MORMON THOUGHT

expressed the optimistic hope that her majesty would see all papists put to the
sword in timely fashion. The Geneva Bible's marginal notes contributed greatly
to its popularity among the Protestant laity, but royalty, clergy, and Roman
Catholics were disturbed by many of the notes' interpretations. The Pope
naturally objected to being identified as "the angel of the bottomless pit" (Rev.
9:11), and defenders of royal privilege were equally upset by a note on Exodus
1:19 approving of the midwives' lying to Pharaoh. It was thus no great shock
when England's new king, James I, commissioned a fresh translation in 1604.
When the new product first issued from the press seven years later, not all
readers were favorably impressed. Some thought its English barbarous. Others
criticized the translators' scholarship. Prominent churchmen, like the Hebraist
Hugh Broughton, "had rather be rent in pieces by wild horses, than any such
translation by my consent should be urged upon poor churches" (Bruce 1963,
229). However, the revision — for it was a revision of earlier versions — was
well received by the authorities and therefore authorized, though never for-
mally, to be read in the churches. But for two generations this Authorized
Bible waged a struggle to replace the Geneva translation in popular usage. The
Puritans brought this struggle to America, where the conceptions and argu-
ments of the two factions in the famous "Antinomian Controversy" in Massa-
chusetts (1637) were conditioned by the respective use of the two different
Bibles (Stout 1982, 31).
Gradually, the phraseology of the Authorized Version came to be viewed
as classically beautiful, and it wielded a major influence on English literature
and the language itself. So completely did its turns of phrase eventually cap-
ture the popular mind that by the eighteenth century many Protestants felt it
blasphemous to change it or even to point out the inadequacies of its scholar-
ship (Daiches 1941). The subsequent efforts of Noah Webster and others to
mend its defects had little effect on most antebellum Americans. Joseph Smith's
generation was raised on the King James Version (as it came to be known in
this country) as thoroughly as it was raised on food and water.
Yet while the familiar translation influenced virtually every aspect of his
thought (Hutchinson 1988; Barlow 1988, chs. 1 and 2), Joseph Smith was
in no sense bound to it as an "official" Bible. To the contrary, he regarded
the version he inherited as malleable and open to creative prophetic adapta-
tion. He believed the Bible was the word of God, but only "as far as it is
translated correctly." And, he noted, the King James Version was not trans-
lated correctly in thousands of instances. The Prophet used the KJV as a base-
line because it was generally available and known, but the thrust of his work
was to break away from the confinement of set forms, to experiment with new
verbal and theological constructions while pursuing his religious vision. Through
good honest study, he worked to understand Hebrew and other tongues that
would improve his scriptural perspective. While so doing, he experimented
freely with Bibles in various languages, once observing that the German Bible
(presumably Luther's) was the most correct of any (HC 6:363-64).
Neither did the KJV enjoy official status among the Saints as a whole.
Early Mormons took the familiar version for granted in many ways, but they
 Barlow: Why the King James ? 21

routinely cited various translations of a given text, noting the King James ren-
dition as but one among others (e.g., Times and Seasons 5:601 and 6:791).
Orson Pratt stressed the textual limitations behind any version. For him, a
translation from the original tongues was not really the word of God, and this
specifically applied to the KJV (JD 7:26-27, 14:257a-60, 15:247-49,
16:218).
In fact, Church leaders such as Pratt, John Taylor, and George Albert
Smith went out of their way to insist that the King James translators were not
inspired (JD 1:25, 7:23ff, 12:264, 14:257-58, 17:269). Claiming no schol-
arly or prophetic basis for his view, Brigham Young casually guessed that, for
all its errors, the Bible was probably translated about "as correctly as the schol-
ars could get it." Yet what he sought was accuracy and truth, not loyalty to a
tradition: "If it be translated incorrectly, and there is a scholar on the earth
who professes to be a Christian, and he can translate it any better than King
James's translators did it, he is under obligation to do so, or the curse is upon
him" (JD 14:226-27). For a generation after Joseph Smith's death, the KJV
was thought of as the common, not the official, Bible of Mormonism.

ANTECEDENTS TO "OFFICIAL" STATUS

This began to change in 1867-68 when the newly formed Reorganized

Church, which had access to the original manuscripts, published Joseph Smith's
inspired "translation" for the first time. Some Utah Mormons, like Orson
Pratt, were enthusiastic about the Prophet's revision, but Brigham Young was
not (JD 1:56, 15:262-65; Bergera 1980, 39-40). Antagonism between the
Utah Church and the smaller group in the Midwest who rejected his leader-
ship led Brigham, and most of his colleagues, to suspect the new publication.
Had Joseph's original work been altered? Furthermore, they reasoned, the
Prophet had not been able to finish and publish his revision during his lifetime.
Some now suggested this failure was providential.
As copies began to proliferate in Utah, various leaders at the School of the
Prophets in Provo voiced the Church's stand against the new revision: "the
world does not want this [new Bible] . . . they are satisfied with the King James
translation"; "The King James translation is good enough. . . . I feel to support
the old Bible until we can get a better one" (Durham 1965, 245-75). This
sentiment was not universal in Utah, and it was explicitly provisional ("until
we can get a better one"), but it was reiterated in later years1 and marked the
ironic beginning of a conscious stress on the King James Version.
An indirect but pervasive influence increasing the status of the KJV among
the Saints was the general Protestant antipathy to Catholic immigrants. Anti-
popery had long flourished in Protestant lands, but Catholics were too few and
too localized in eighteenth-century (eastern) America to incite broad conflict.
1
In 1881, for example, future apostle Charles Penrose asserted that the Church would
use the Authorized Version "until the inspired . . . revision commenced by the Prophet
Joseph Smith shall have been completed, in a form acceptable to the Almighty and suitable
for publication." This suspicion of the "Reorganite" production was still apparent in the
Utah-based church as recently as the early 1970s, after which it rapidly faded.
22 DIALOGUE: A JOURNAL OF MORMON THOUGHT

By the 1820s, however, Protestants were viewing Catholics, who before mid-
century would constitute the nation's largest denomination, as a genuine threat
to an evangelical America.
Mutual suspicion abounded, and many Protestants discerned conspiracy
everywhere: Catholics' first allegiance was not to democracy and "the Bible
alone" (a Protestant cliche), but to "Roman powers across the deep." Catho-
lic "foreigners" simply did not belong — never mind that Maryland had been
founded by Catholics and that Catholics had colonized the American shores
for a century and a half before the Puritan migration. Large numbers of
Catholics seemed to undermine American freedoms. Some evangelicals, like
Lyman Beecher, believed Catholics were forbidden even to read the Bible "but
by permission of the priesthood." Even then, they used their own foreign ver-
sion instead of the "real Bible" of "real Christians" (Fogarty 1982, 164).
Quite apart from Beecher's misconceptions, Catholics were prohibited by
the Council of Trent from reading the King James Version2 In the 1840s, one
New York priest outraged the nation's religious majority — and heightened
their KJV sensibilities — by enforcing Trent's prohibition with excessive zeal:
he collected and publicly burned the Bibles given his immigrant parishioners
by one of the Protestant Bible societies. Even earlier, in the 1820s, the Catholic
First Provincial Council had castigated the Protestant bias of public educa-
tion — particularly the use of the King James Bible — and encouraged the
founding of parochial schools. The issue did not fade for generations, and
tensions often escalated to violence (Ahlstrom 1:666-81; Fogarty 1982, 163—
65; Billington 1964, 68-76).
Thus, in restricted locales at first and across the land as the century wore
on, the conscious use of the real, Christian, American, Protestant Bible —
the King James Version — was increasingly momentous for many Americans.
The KJV was still almost taken for granted, but to specifically mention it as
one's own version often implied a declaration of one's Americanness and one's
Christianity (which was to say, one had no Catholic sympathies).
To some extent, Latter-day Saints participated in this trend. Alienated
from the culturally dominant Protestants in so many ways, the Saints plausibly
might have identified with the embattled Catholics by defending alternative
translations. But most LDS converts had come from Protestant ranks that
assumed the KJV. Moreover, the Saints themselves had inherited a significant
strain of anti-Catholicism, and during the course of Mormon history some
would identify the Pope as the head of "the great and abominable church"
mentioned in the Book of Mormon. An occasional Mormon leader even made
these drifts explicit, remarking on the worth of the Authorized Version against
Roman Catholics who objected to it (Cannon 1875, 246).
After the turn of the century, a more pressing influence — the newly per-
ceived threat of modern biblical studies — helped entrench the Authorized
Version. Although the responses of Church leaders to higher criticism were
2
The Council of Trent banished from general use all translations not deriving from the
Latin Vulgate; this naturally applied to the subsequent KJV. The prohibition was finally
rescinded by Pope Pius XII in the 1943 encyclical Divino Affllante Spiritu.
 Barlow: Why the King James? 23

actually quite diverse, many leaders were decidedly hostile, seeing the new
approach to scripture as a menace to Christian faith. Some became defensive,
viewing any attempt to progress beyond the trusted King James Bible through
scholarship as a related challenge to faith. Joseph Fielding Smith, for instance,
was so bitter at the inroads made by higher criticism that he viewed textual
criticism equally dimly (1970, 364).
In addition to such causes, we must also acknowledge that Mormon loyalty
to the KJV was simply the fruit of a diffuse conservatism, a natural attach-
ment to the vehicle through which a people feel they have encountered the
sacred. This love of the Bible "of one's youth" is easily traced in the resistance
with which every major new translation, including the King James Version,
has been greeted.3 This preservationist impulse will be explored more fully as
we look at the later twentieth century, but it doubtless was a factor in earlier
decades as well.
I must reiterate that this new emphasis on the Authorized Version in the
late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries represented a real shift from
Joseph Smith's era. But it is similarly important not to overstate the change.
As many Saints had done since 1830, some continued simply to equate the
Bible itself with its 1611 English translation; they had never known another.
Indeed, although the KJV was spoken of with increasing self-consciousness as
the Mormon Bible, considerable diversity continued to exist. B. H. Roberts
and others were relatively open to ongoing studies that improved the Greek
text from which better translations could be made (Roberts 1907-12, 31).
A new generation of Latter-day Saint leaders continued to instruct that the
KJV was not translated by inspiration (Penrose 1893, 544; Talmage 1899,
236-37; Clift 1904, 655, 663) and noted here and there other versions with-
out asserting KJV superiority ("Translation" 1898).
Even when Church leaders did articulate reasons for recommending the
King James over other translations, they rarely claimed that it was more accu-
rate. They supported it primarily because they suspected the RLDS produc-
tion of Joseph Smith's revision or because they believed the elegant familiar
version had "taken too firm a hold of the popular heart" to forsake it (Penrose
1881; Smith and Roberts 1899, 621). Sometimes, in fact, they highly praised
modern translations, offering only an appended tolerance for those who would
3
The 1611 translators were sensitive to the criticism of their work, which they properly
foresaw. In the Preface to their translation, they pled their case in words that should give
pause to those who so adamantly resist modern translations:
"We are so farre off from condemning any of their labours that traueiled before vs in
this kinde, either in this land or beyond sea. . . . that we acknowledge them to have beene
raised vp of God, . . . and that they deserue to be had of vs and of posteritie in everlasting
remembrance. . . . Therefore blessed be they, and most honoured be their name, that breake
the yce and give the onset vpon that which helpeth forward to the saving of soules. Now
what can bee more auaileable thereto, than to deliuer Gods booke vnto Gods people in a
tongue which they vnderstand? . . .
"So, if we building vpon their foundation that went before vs, and being holpen by their
labours, doe endeavour to make that better which they left so good; no man, we are sure,
hath cause to mislike vs; they, we perswade ourselues, if they were aliue, would thanke vs.
"For is the kingdome of God become words or syllables? Why should wee be in bondage
to them if we may be free. . . . ?"
24 DIALOGUE: A JOURNAL OF MORMON THOUGHT

continue to prefer the familiar version "because they have grown accustomed
to its lofty phrases" (Steele 1935, 6).
Occasionally, a leader even argued extensively for the superiority of the
major revisions of 1881 and 1901 (the [British] Revised Version and the
American Standard Version). One writer noted that the KJV scholars did not
have access to older manuscripts subsequently available and that even the
Catholic version was more accurate in many instances than the KJV. He went
on to ridicule the common "beautiful literature" argument — as though schol-
ars should take it upon themselves to add "grace and dignity" to the original
language of the uneducated fishermen of Galilee. Although loyalty to the Bible
of one's ancestors was commendable, "those who accept the eighth article of
the Church will seek for the best translation" (Clift 1904a, 654-64; 1904b,
774-78).
Despite this wide spectrum of attitudes, ordinary Church members during
the first half of the century were not so much hostile as they were indifferent to
the new translations that were beginning to multiply. Leaders increasingly
noted that the KJV was the "best" version but often gave no rationale for the
assertion (Smith 1954-56, 3:191; Widtsoe 1947, 257-60). 4 The Church
produced various editions for its missionaries, children's organization, and
education system — all using the KJV.
In the days of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, then, Church leaders
had largely taken the KJV for granted. But they had also insisted on its limita-
tions and had encouraged the exploration, through both scholarly and pro-
phetic means, of new and better expressions of God's word. By contrast, leaders
in the early twentieth century also took the KJV for granted but tended to
resist scholarly improvements. They seemed passively to assume that if a new
translation of the scriptures were needed, God would take the initiative and let
his prophet know. Nineteenth-century Latter-day Saints shared much with
their contemporaries but reacted creatively against a confining orthodoxy; early
twentieth-century Saints shared much with their non-Mormon peers but re-
acted conservatively against a changing, secular world. Of course, Church
members continued to feel free — sometimes they were even encouraged —
to compare various translations. But we must wonder how many actually
bothered.

J. REUBEN CLARK, JR.

The 1950s brought a significant change for readers of serious literature.

The Revised Standard Version appeared and met the stiff resistance of J. Reu-
ben Clark, dedicated and forceful member of the Church's First Presidency.
In the wake of President Clark's still influential response, a substantial number
of Saints for the first time moved beyond assuming the preeminence of the
KJV, to believing they had scholarly and prophetic reasons for assuming it.
4
Elsewhere, Widtsoe did suggest that the language of the KJV was "unsurpassed," that
it had an excellent "spiritual connotation," and, although he offered no basis for his guess,
that it was probably superior in faithful adherence to the text available to its translators
(1:100-101).
 Barlow: Why the King James? 25

Brigham Young still had six years before him as an earthly prophet when
J. Reuben Clark was born in the rural outpost of Grantsville, Utah, in 1871.
Although his intellectual prospects were initially modest, Clark went on to an
illustrious career in national public service. After graduating from the Uni-
versity of Utah as valedictorian, he attended the Columbia Law School, served
as a principal editor of the Columbia Law Review, and graduated as one of
the top students. Later, he became solicitor of the U.S. State Department,
then U.S. undersecretary of state, and finally ambassador to Mexico. Through-
out his public career, Clark's brilliance, integrity, and thoroughness earned
high praise from senators, justices of the Supreme Court, and U.S. presidents.
Indeed, he regularly declined the urging of men like Harry Chandler, owner
of the Los Angeles Times, to run for president himself. In 1933 Clark resigned
as Mexican ambassador to serve as a counselor to Church president Heber J.
Grant. He continued in the First Presidency until his death in 1961, one of
the longest periods of such service in LDS history (Yarn 1973; 1984; Fox
1980; Quinn 1983). One of the enduring legacies of his service resulted from
his encounter with the scholarly revision of the text of the English Bible.
The complete Revised Standard Version was launched in 1952 with a
publicity campaign such as few, if any, of its predecessors had enjoyed. That,
of course, did not protect it from adverse criticism. Some thought the transla-
tion was unnecessarily conservative and did not deviate sufficiently from the
KJV. A more vocal group believed it not only deviated excessively but was
itself devious — scarcely Christian. The project had been sponsored by the
liberal National Council of Churches, and this alone was enough to insure
the mistrust of many evangelicals and the undisguised contempt of their funda-
mentalist cousins. Pamphlets bearing titles like The New Blasphemous Bible
and The Bible of Antichrist are as indicative of the virulent response as the fact
that Senator Joseph McCarthy's Senate investigation committee formally
charged members of the RSV translating committee with allowing Communist
influences to subvert the Bible (Bruce 1970, 194-209; Noll 1984, 109-10).
Mormon responses were more reserved, though some did use the occasion
to affirm the stature of the KJV. An unsigned editorial in the October 1952
Church News asserted: "For the Latter-day Saints there can be but one ver-
sion of the Bible" — the King James Version (p. 16). One year later, Apostle
Mark E. Petersen echoed that the Bible "officially used in the Church" was the
KJV (1953, 17-21). J. Reuben Clark clearly was not the only Latter-day
Saint who disliked the new Bible; he was merely the most articulate.5
President Clark rebelled for much of his adult life against "the pettifogging,
doubt-raising attacks" of the higher critics, and he was equally disdainful of
the new "lower" or textual critics. His passionate objections to the revisions
of 1888 and 1901 launched him on a decades-long course of meticulous re-
search in defense of the KJV. Over the years, he expressed his views in per-
sonal correspondence, in private conversations, and in public sermons. Upon
the appearance of the RSV — which, in the wake of earlier revisions, he con-
5
Leaders like Mark E. Petersen did, however, use other versions when they seemed
helpful.
26 DIALOGUE: A JOURNAL OF MORMON THOUGHT

sidered "more of the same, only worse" — Clark spent several additional years
preparing his research notes for publication. The result was his monumental
1956 tome, Why the King James Version.6
In the book, President Clark presented his case with a lawyer's skill and a
churchman's zeal. His arguments were interwoven and reiterated throughout
his work, but for purposes of analysis they may be separated into six cate-
gories. Most of these he shared with KJV apologists of various denomina-
tions. Some, however, were distinctive to the Latter-day Saints, and these
were perhaps the reason why the issue of the KJV's status did not rise even
to the level of serious debate in Mormon ranks. Compared to the three revi-
sions (1888, 1901, and 1952), President Clark believed the Authorized Ver-
sion was (1) doctrinally more acceptable, (2) verified by the work of Joseph
Smith, (3) based on a better Greek text, (4) literarily superior, (5) the version
of LDS tradition, and (6) produced by prayerful souls subject to the Holy
Spirit, rather than by a mixture of believing and unbelieving, or orthodox and
heterodox, scholars.7
Easily the most important of these arguments — the one that controlled
and motivated his entire KJV apology — was Clark's belief that the revisions
were infected with a despicable, conspiratorial humanism. "As one notes . . .
the havoc which [the revisions] work upon vital portions of the Scriptures
as contained in the Authorized Version, . . . one can but wonder if there be
not behind this movement . . . a deliberate . . . intent to destroy the Christian
faith." Adding a self-revealing metaphor, he proclaimed the King James Bible
the "citadel of Christianity" (1956, 6-7, 27, 34, 121, 126, 356).
In particular, President Clark was bothered that the revised versions cast
doubt on cherished phrases by offering alternative readings, supported by
ancient texts, in the margin.8 He was yet more offended that other treasured
sayings were actually removed from the text and given only marginal status.0
6
On the title page, Clark justly described his work as, "A series of study notes, neither
treatises nor essays, dealing with certain elementary problems and specific scriptural passages,
involved in considering the preferential English translations of the Greek New Testament
text."
7
Clark cast additional aspersions against modern versions, but he failed to develop them
into arguments. For example, he accused the RSV scholars of "interpreting" rather than
"translating." This seems a fundamental misunderstanding, however, since all translation
necessarily entails interpretation and since, in any case, the KJV scholars, with their pre-
dominant concern for literary excellence, could more easily have been accused of over-
translating than could the RSV scholars. Similarly, the preface and conclusion to Clark's
book emphasized that God is greater than humans, who ought not attempt to mar God's
word. But the RSV translators as a group would have concurred.
8
The revisions of Luke 23:34, for instance, read essentially the same as the KJV, but
add a marginal note: "Some ancient authorities omit And Jesus said, Father, forgive them;
for they know not what they do." Other examples troubling Clark were Matthew 17:21;
Matthew 18:11; and the famous "long ending" of the Gospel of Mark (16:9-20).
9
For example, the revisions reduced to marginal status the doxology ("For thine is the
kingdom, and the power, and the glory") from the Lord's prayer in Matthew 6:13. Other
prominent instances include Luke 2:14; 22:19-20; 22:43-44; 23:44. Clark seemed more
concerned about the possibility of losing something from the scriptures than he was about
canonizing words that may have been later additions. But the KJV also omits various clarify-
ing words and phrases included in virtually all recent critical editions of the Greek New
Testament. For examples, see Larson 1978, 125-32.
 Barlow: Why the King James? 27

Equally distressing, familiar KJV words were replaced by new translations:

"charity" in I Corinthians 13 became "love"; "lunatic" (Matt. 17:14) be-
came "epileptic." But what disturbed Clark most deeply was the tendency
he thought he saw to reduce the divine status of Jesus and the supernatural
dimension of scripture in general. "Miracles" were now called "signs," "won-
ders," or "mighty works." Textual doubt over the phrase "the Son of God"
was noted in revisions of Mark 1:1. Marginal alternate readings were docu-
mented for Christ as "God over all" in Romans 9:4-5. Like opponents of the
revisions nationally and internationally, Clark followed conservative scholars
(especially John W. Burgon and F. H. A. Scrivener) in citing example after
example where modern translations scandalized traditional tastes (1956, 318,
398; Carson 1979,43).
President Clark's reasoning, however, contained two major flaws. The
least that could be said of the revisers' changes was that plausible scholarly
reasons existed for making them.10 And if the best evidence suggested that cer-
tain passages in the KJV were not in the originals but were interpolated by
later copyists, it was hardly becoming to insist that they be retained simply
because they were treasured traditions or because they reinforced Latter-day
Saint perceptions. Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon, and the Bible itself
had all condemned such tampering.
Moreover, even if one allowed theological perspectives to consciously take
precedence over textual and translation accuracy, there are passages where
modern translations, including those Clark attacked, directly ascribe deity to
Jesus when the King James Version does not (Appendix). It is thus scarcely
just to accuse the modern translators of systematic theological bias exceeding
the inevitable bias of any translation, including the KJV. The central point,
however, is that even for a people like the Latter-day Saints, who believe in
current revelation, translations of scripture accomplished by human scholar-
ship must be based on what the best texts actually say, not on what a preexist-
ing theology or tradition wants them to say.
President Clark was aware of this, of course. He therefore marshaled evi-
dence, both prophetic and scholarly, to back up his doctrinal concerns. Un-
fortunately, he drew his prophetic support from a fundamental misperception
of Joseph Smith's revelations. Specifically, Clark felt the Prophet's inspired
revision of the Bible supported the King James Version in all essential mat-
ters. Whenever one compared the Prophet's "translation" with objectionable
changes in the RV/ASV/RSV, Joseph's Bible more closely resembled the
KJV — thus demonstrating the errors of the modern revisions (Clark 1956,
3,43,318,398).
10
Where the KJV and the revisions differ in English but depend on identical Greek
texts, we may defend scholarly logic on both sides. Paul's agape in I Corinthians 13, for
example, does not mean "charity" (KJV) but "love" (RSV). Yet the English word "love"
is inadequate also, since Greek distinguishes several kinds of love with different words. The
King James scholars apparently tried to convey a meaning that would give particular shape
to our general concept of love. There remain dozens of readings where KJV phraseology
is arguably preferable to the RSV. For several examples in a single chapter, see Grant's
exegesis of Mark 1:14, 16, 44 (1951). But weighing against such examples are thousands
of instances where the RSV is clearly superior.
28 DIALOGUE: A JOURNAL OF MORMON THOUGHT

This line of thought was reinforced by President Clark's understanding of

revelation in general. For all his erudition in other matters, he seems to have
had little apprehension of the conceptual nature of Joseph Smith's revelations.
Instead, Clark thought of them as almost verbally exact expressions recorded
by the Prophet precisely as they fell from the mouth of God. President Clark
believed the Doctrine and Covenants, for example, preserved "the words of
the Lord as He [actually] spoke them" (Durham 1971, 36-37). Similarly,
for Clark, Joseph Smith's changes in the KJV indicated the original form of
the ancient texts.
There was irony in the fact that Joseph Smith's inspired translation, as
published by the RLDS Church, was now being used to authenticate the KJV
text. After all, it had been Mormon suspicions about this publication that had,
in the 1860s, sponsored the initial elevation of the KJV's stature among the
Saints. But more than irony was involved here. Clark's logic actually inverted
reality. Joseph Smith's biblical revision resembled the King James Version
because that is the version he worked from and amended, not because God's
native tongue was Late Middle or Early Modern English. For similar reasons,
Joseph's other revelations also retained a measure of the language of King
James (Barlow 1988, chs. 1 and 2). However, the Prophet himself could
scarcely have considered all his revelations to be the exact words of God, which
he then recorded as if by dictation, for he frequently, publicly, and unapolo-
getically rearranged, reworded, conflated, and augmented them (Howard
1969).
President Clark was by no means the first, it should be noted, to use this
reasoning. Because Joseph Smith had couched his revelations as though God
were speaking in the "first person" in a nineteenth-century dialect of Jacobean
English, the earliest Mormons, who were as immersed in biblical phraseology
as Joseph was himself, doubtless assumed this was God's manner of speech
when he addressed Americans. A century later, however, the language of the
KJV was less taken for granted by believing Christians. Alternative transla-
tions in modern language, not merely revisions of the KJV, were rapidly ap-
pearing (Hills 1961). Remaining allegiance to Elizabethan and Jacobean
forms became more conscious. Thus, in celebrating the 300th anniversary of
the KJV, a 21 April 1911 column in the Church-owned Deseret Evening News
marveled, even more innocently than did J. Reuben Clark, that King James's
"is the version given to the world by eminent scholarship in the very same lan-
guage in which modern revelations are given."

IN SEARCH OF SCHOLARLY SUPPORT

President Clark's misapprehension of the nature of Joseph Smith's revela-
tions was unfortunate. Yet it was not on this but on scholarly grounds that he
made his most elaborate case for the authorized text. He was modest and
honest enough to preface his academic argument with the disclaimer that he
was not a genuine biblical scholar. As he acknowledged, he knew no biblical
language, had no formal training, and based his assessment entirely on sec-
ondary materials.
 Barlow: Why the King James? 29

His use of these secondary sources was, however, prodigious. If his major
concern with the revised Bibles was that they were laced with a modern
humanism, his undergirding contention was that an ancient humanism — the
heresy of Arianism11 — tainted the Greek text upon which the revisions rested.
In order to legitimate the doctrinally more acceptable King James Bible, Presi-
dent Clark championed the "Textus Receptus" (TR), the Byzantine-based
Greek text from which the KJV had been translated. Those scholars who
similarly supported the Byzantine text, Clark called "Sound" or "High" Textu-
alists; those who did not, he pejoratively labeled "Extreme Textualists."
The details of modern textual criticism are complex and available else-
where (Metzger 1969; Carson 1979; Moulton 1967; Brown 1968). But to
understand Clark's academic reasoning, a brief account of the development of
the New Testament texts behind the KJV and the revised versions is necessary.
Erasmus published the first Greek New Testament in 1516. His edition was
based on only six manuscripts, dating from the eleventh to the fifteenth cen-
turies, and these in turn came essentially from a single tradition which, an-
ciently, had several rivals. Thus, by modern standards, his edition was inade-
quate. In fact, for small parts of the New Testament where he lacked any
Greek manuscripts, Erasmus simply translated the Latin Vulgate into what he
conjectured the original might have been! One intriguing result is that there
are no Greek manuscripts at all behind a dozen or so readings in the KJV.
Thirty years later, Robert Estienne (Stephanus) produced Greek editions
following Erasmus in the text but using several additional manuscripts and
introducing a critical apparatus to show alternate readings in the margins.
His text was thus only a minimal improvement over Erasmus's. Theodore Beza
enriched this tradition somewhat by publishing nine editions of the Greek New
Testament between 1565 and 1604. Two of these influenced the King James
translators. The resultant text became the Textus Receptus.12
It is unfortunate that so influential a version as the King James was based
on the TR, a text incorporating relatively few, relatively late, and relatively
poor manuscripts. Not only had Beza and his predecessors ignored several
earlier manuscripts than those they used, but for three centuries after 1611,
additional manuscripts more ancient than those used by the King James schol-
ars became available. A far more important development was the gradual
recognition by scholars after 1725 that there were manuscript traditions or
"families" — not merely numerous manuscripts — that differed from the TR.
This insight led to continual improvement of textual classifications and allowed
11
The fourth-century Arian controversy was waged on sophisticated, highly nuanced
metaphysical and ontological ground. As used by J. Reuben Clark, Arianism meant essen-
tially that the humanity of Jesus was emphasized and his divinity minimized or lost.
12
J. Reuben Clark imbued this title with great dignity, but the term actually originated
from what textual expert Bruce Metzger calls "an advertising blurb." Thirteen years after
the publication of the KJV, two brothers published a compact Greek New Testament, the
text of which was essentially Beza's. The "blurb" reads: "Textum ergo habes, nunc ab
omnibut receptum: in quo nihil immutatem aut corruptum damns" ("The text that you have
is now received by all, in which we give nothing changed or perverted") ; hence, "Textus
Receptus" (Carson 1979, 36).
30 DIALOGUE: A JOURNAL OF MORMON THOUGHT

"lower" criticism to proceed on a more scientific basis, reaching a peak with

the landmark work of Cambridge scholars B. F. Westcott and F. J. A. Hort,
who in 1881-82 published The New Testament in the Original Greek.
Hort and Westcott positioned four major "families" of ancient texts. Of
these, they said, the "Syrian," represented by the Byzantine tradition, was the
latest and most corrupt. The least corrupt, or "neutral" tradition, was the
"Alexandrian." This represented a direct challenge to the Byzantine-based
King James Bible. The theory was bitterly attacked but won the support of
most scholars and underlies virtually all subsequent work in New Testament
criticism. As Raymond Brown observes, if the King James was a transla-
tion of the Textus Receptus, the RV and the subsequent RSV were heavily
influenced by principles akin to those of the Westcott-Hort Greek Testament
(1968).
Because he believed that the revised versions undermined cherished Chris-
tian ideals, J. Reuben Clark turned the guns of his formidable mind against the
Westcott-Hort text (1956, 67-118).13 He followed critics who protested that
the Westcott-Hort construction was overly dependent on the Alexandrian text-
type, particularly the famous codices (manuscript volumes), Sinaiticus and
Vaticanus. He further followed those who alleged that these codices were not
only fourth-century (that is, late) manuscripts, but that they represented a
text-type that only originated in the fourth century, under heretical conditions,
which is why the early church rejected them.
Most serious scholars were unpersuaded by such theories,14 and subsequent
discoveries have demonstrated that the Alexandrian text-type goes back at
least to the second century. Westcott and Hort definitely established that cer-
tain traditions were generally preferable to others, and it remains true that the
Alexandrian type has the best credentials. The able textual studies of even
arch-conservative Protestants like Benjamin B. Warfield and J. Gresham
Machen argue that the Byzantine text-type is essentially a late one (Carson
1979,43).
But some of President Clark's contentions have merit. The Westcott-Hort
theory has, in the twentieth century, been modified in many respects. Among
other things, the textual traditions identified by the theory have been reclassi-
fied. Modern scholars recognize, unlike Westcott-Hort, that no text group has
descended essentially uncontaminated from the original autographs. Also,
13
It should be noted that the Textus Receptus and the Byzantine text-type are not
synonymous. The TR is based on a mere handful of relatively late manuscripts, compared to
the thousands in the Byzantine tradition. The closest manuscripts within the Byzantine or
any other textual tradition average six to ten variants per chapter. Thus even a successful
defense of the superiority of the Byzantine tradition (which most scholars reject) would not
constitute a successful defense of the King James Bible, which is a translation of the TR
(Carson 1979, 37, 67-68).
14
A small minority of scholars, including the fine thinker Richard L. Anderson from
BYU, marshal at least plausible reasons for the superiority of the Textus Receptus. In my
view, however, many such defenses by Latter-day Saints •—• though here I mention no scholar
in particular — are motivated as much by, "This is the Church's position; I must find an
intellectual way to defend it," as by a more objective attempt to determine the best Greek
text. Moreover, as this essay insists, the Church's current stance toward the KJV has evolved
from a significantly different one.
 Barlow: Why the King James ? 31

while the Byzantine text is not generally preferable to the Alexandrian, some
of the Byzantine readings (as with all the major traditions) are genuinely
ancient. Westcott and Hort had indeed, as Clark charged, been overly de-
pendent on the Vaticanus and Sinaiticus codices. However, President Clark
failed to allow that modern critical editions are eclectic, established on a case-
by-case basis, using the best available evidence. They do not slavishly depend
on the Alexandrian or any other tradition.15
But President Clark went further in his criticism. Because modifications
in the critical text were ongoing and scholars admitted they were likely to con-
tinue indefinitely, Clark implied that we therefore need not take too seriously
changes that went beyond the TR (and thus beyond the KJV) (1956, 358) .1G
This perspective, however, did not give sufficient weight to the tentative nature
of all progress in human knowledge.
In any event, the case for the RSV was never based solely on the existence
of better manuscripts than those available to King James's translators. The
discovery of a wealth of papyri in the twentieth century has significantly deep-
ened scholars' understanding of the New Testament language as a whole, mak-
ing better translations inevitable. Linguistic progress has been even more
dramatic in the case of the Old Testament.
Perhaps the most enduring argument marshaled for the King James Bible
against its challengers has been its unmatched literary elegance. As we have
noted, this was not self-evident when the work first appeared in 1611. But
within fifty years of its publication its excellence was increasingly acknowl-
edged; feelings of reverence became ever more deeply attached to this beauty.
During most of the nineteenth century, Latter-day Saints said little about
the Bible's literary value, much less that this criterion should take priority over
accuracy. Their oft-repeated refrain was that all texts and translations were
corrupt, and they professed to care most about precision, not beauty. How-
ever, with the arrival of the Joseph Smith revision and the threatening appear-
ance of major new revisions, the literary importance of the KJV was increas-
ingly stressed.
For J. Reuben Clark, this was an important issue. "Could any language
be too great, too elegant, too beautiful, too majestic, too divine-like to record
the doings and sayings of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ?" he said. The language
of God was ill-served when rendered "on the level of the ordinary press re-
porter's style of today" (1956, 355, 377).
15
Richard Anderson feels that the so-called eclectic texts pay only lip service to eclecti-
cism and remain overly dependent on Sinaiticus and Vaticanus.
16
The provisional nature of textual criticism may be illustrated by the return to the text,
in the second edition of the RSV, of a few passages formerly moved to the margin. Clark
would have felt vindicated, for example, by the return of the account of the woman caught in
adultery (John 7:53-8: 11). But the essential point is that, rather than allow scholarship to
weigh its evidence unencumbered, Clark would have refused, on grounds of familiarity or
doctrine, to excise or even to annotate the passage in the first place. It was just this sort of
thought that had forced Erasmus, against his judgment and against virtually all manuscript
evidence, to include the text of 1 John 5:7, the classic proof-text for the Trinity, in his
Greek New Testament. Consequently, the spurious passage remains in the KJV to this day
(Carson 1979, 34-35).
32 DIALOGUE: A JOURNAL OF MORMON THOUGHT

This concern for literary beauty had practical consequences. Before pub-
lishing Why the King James Version, Clark approached Church president
David O. McKay for permission. McKay resisted. "We ought to be a little
careful," he said, "about criticizing the Revised Version," since in some places
it proved more accurate than the familiar text and it also eliminated confusing,
outdated terms. Clark countered that President McKay, who had literary
training, would probably not wish to rewrite Shakespeare's plays for the same
purpose. The Church president acknowledged the point and assented to
Clark's publication of the book (Quinn 1983, 177).
President Clark's belief in the decisive importance of the linguistic superi-
ority of the KJV was a plausible perspective, certainly. The KJV is a literary
masterpiece and has perhaps more power in certain instances to awaken reli-
gious feelings than more pedestrian translations. But this belief could hardly
pass as the official Church view when the prophet and president of the Church
remained unenthusiastic. And President Clark's quip about Shakespeare would
apply only if one's central purpose in reading scripture were literary. But for
Latter-day Saints the Bible served other purposes. And unlike Shakespeare,
the Testaments were not original products of sixteenth- and seventeenth-
century England. Translating the Bible afresh was not analogous to marring
the original Shakespeare but to offering a new translation of Shakespeare to,
say, German-speaking peoples, when Germans already possess a beautiful but
inaccurate rendition they hold dear.
The literary argument had other weaknesses. President McKay pointed
out the most obvious ones: an archaic style and terms that were sometimes
charming but markedly difficult for most modern readers to understand. Clark
allowed the problem but insisted that the Authorized Version could be under-
stood in all essential parts by the careful, thoughtful reader. A little work with
a reference book, he felt, could overcome this small obstacle.
Perhaps President Clark's own diligence led him to overestimate the ambi-
tions of the ordinary reader. Even so, his own experience undermined his posi-
tion. Difficult Jacobean words and phrases might here and there be overcome
by the few who would bother to consult reference material,17 or when readers
encountered familiar material such as the Sermon on the Mount. But such
measures would hardly suffice for those attempting to understand, say, the
intricate and sustained arguments of the Epistle to the Romans. President
Clark himself admitted he did not grasp much of Paul, which is no wonder
(Clark 1956, 60; Quinn 1983, 162). The famous apostle is difficult enough
to read for any length of time in the original Greek; for the average reader,
the challenge is yet more severe in archaic English. For the Church's young
members, attempting to view the overall message of Paul or Isaiah or Hebrews
through the dense lens of Elizabethan prose is very nearly hopeless.
Other facts further diluted the "beautiful literature" argument. In present-
ing ancient documents to a modern world, modern translators had, in many
passages, been faced with either retaining the elegance of the KJV or offering
17
Or, in contemporary Mormonism, the larger number who consult the footnotes of their
current LDS edition.
 Barlow: Why the King James? 33

a modern accurate rendition. To choose elegance over accuracy ran explicitly

counter to the calls of Brigham Young and others for exactness in translation.
It also ran implicitly against a more general dislike of elaborate religious dis-
play: Latter-day Saints and Protestants alike had long disparaged what they
saw as the gorgeous robes, overly ornate cathedrals, ostentatious public cere-
monies, and other trappings of Catholicism.18 Yet for Mormons to insist on
retaining a beautiful language no longer accessible to the common person dif-
fered only in degree from contemporaneous American Catholics who insisted
on a beautiful and mysterious Latin Mass.
Earlier in the century, Latter-day Saints had already expressed reserve
toward the tendency of scholars to inflate the humble dialects of many of the
original biblical writings into a "masterly English." Twentieth-century schol-
ars made a similar point, demonstrating what the scholars of the RV and ASV,
to say nothing of the KJV, did not know, namely that the New Testament had
been written in Koine or "common" Greek. As one eminent authority has put
it, "an elaborate, elegant style is unsuited to" biblical translation, "and in
proportion as it is rendered in a conscious literary style, it is misrepresented to
the modern reader." 19
Beyond the literary argument, an even weaker claim for the authorized
translation was President Clark's assertion that it was the Bible of Mormon
tradition, one that had successfully guided the Church from its beginning.
This was technically true, of course, but, as already suggested, Joseph Smith
would have been the last person to make allegiance to an inaccurate Bible
an official practice when he knew of an alternative. His use of the KJV was
incidental to the time and location of his birth and, even then, he refused to
be confined by it. The Book of Mormon itself scoffed at tradition-bound souls
who refused progress in hearing the word of God.
President Clark reinforced his "argument by tradition" by noting that "the
great bulk of our people know and use only the Authorized Version, and do
not have access either to the Revised Versions . . . or to other versions." More-
over, he said, "references in our Standard Church Works and our Church lit-
erature are to the Authorized Version," and Bible commentaries and dic-
tionaries are in good part keyed to it. In a comment perhaps more revealing
18
President Clark himself worried that the Church risked duplicating what Mormons
believed was the early apostasy of Christianity, warning against such practices as specified
dress in Church administration and pageantry in Church ceremonies (CR 1945, 166; Quinn
1983, 173).
19
Edgar J. Goodspeed (in Clark 1956, 355). The Church's First Presidency has shown
sensitivity to the potential problems of translations that attempt to improve upon ambiguities
or literary infelicities of the scriptural text being translated. In 1980, for example, when
giving instructions for a new translation of the Book of Mormon and other Latter-day Saint
scriptures into German, the First Presidency observed: "The translation must contain the
recurring expressions and also awkward sentence constructions. No attempt may be made
to paraphrase in an explanatory way, to make alterations, or indeed to improve the literary
ability and knowledge as expressed in the current English text versions" (Snow 1984, 136).
Such a statement reflects the deep reverence felt toward Mormon scriptures but, in light of
the Church position on the KJV, it reveals no awareness of the ways in which the Authorized
Version of the Bible has been guilty of improving upon the original Hebrew and Greek
manuscripts.
34 DIALOGUE: A JOURNAL OF MORMON THOUGHT

than he knew, Clark added that the "Authorized Version is to most of us The
Bible, and we would feel we had been disloyal to the record of God's dealings
with men if we were to use any other text (we love the Word of God as therein
given)" (1956,60-61).
The sentiment was appropriately reverent, but the logic was not cogent.
And what little force the point then held is rapidly evaporating. Gaining
familiarity with other versions and access to them were scarcely insurmount-
able problems even in President Clark's time. And what was then a minor
difficulty was only compounded by his making the KJV seem more official to
ordinary believers. Commentaries and dictionaries by the most competent
scholars are, of course, no longer "keyed" primarily to the KJV.
In a subset of the tradition argument, President Clark made much of the
fact that the RV and ASV had not displaced the King James Version in popu-
larity (Yarn 1984, 78-79, 92). He was sure that the RSV would fare no
better. There was substance to this claim, since the KJV had, in fact, retained
an entrenched loyalty. But this became less and less true as time went on.
Recent translations like the New English Bible, Today's English Bible, the New
International Version, the RSV itself, and a number of others have continued
to gain an increasing share of the market. And even if the weight of President
Clark's assertion had endured, to insist on a Bible that is more popular than
accurate remains a problematic posture.
Clark's final defense of the Authorized Version (or final assault on the
revised translations) arose from his doctrinal concerns. In this defense, Presi-
dent Clark implied that the King James translators had been inspired, while
the Revised Standard Version scholars had not: no "clear cut statement of the
Revisers is noted that . . . they either sought or enjoyed the help of the Spirit
of the Lord. . . . It would seem the whole Revision was approached in the same
spirit they would employ in the translation of any classical work." Against this
President Clark contrasted the KJV translators' work as described in their
preface:
And in what sort did these assemble? In the trust of their own knowledge, or of their
sharpness of wit, or deepness of judgment, as it were in an arm of flesh? At no hand.
They trusted in him that hath the key of David . . . ; they prayed to the Lord . . .
to the effect that St. Augustine did; O let thy Scriptures be my pure delight; let me
not be deceived in them, neither let me deceive by them. In this confidence, and with
this devotion, did they assemble together.

Thus, Clark implied, the KJV scholars — and not the Revised scholars —
were "amenable to the promptings of the Holy Spirit" (1956, xxvii, 4-5, 274-
86,355-56,418-19).
This position was a bit awkward. First, the newly implied claim that the
KJV translators were inspired was directly opposed to the almost unanimous
contention of Church leaders from 1830 to President Clark's own time. Second,
we might argue that including "non-believing" translators on the Revisers'
committee helped minimize sectarian bias in the finished product. Third, what-
ever the advantages or disadvantages of secularity, the Revised translators did,
in fact, invoke the hand of God over their work. In an essay so pious that it
 Barlow: Why the King James? 35

would have embarrassed the self-respecting modern translators of any work but
holy scripture, the British Revision concluded its preface thus:
We now conclude, humbly commending our labours to Almighty God, and praying
that his favour and blessing may be vouchsafed to that which has been done in his
name. We recognised from the first the responsibility of the undertaking; and through
our manifold experience of its abounding difficulties we have felt more and more, as
we went onward, that such a work can never be accomplished by organised efforts of
scholarship and criticism, unless assisted by Divine help.
Thus, in the review of the work which we have been permitted to complete, our
closing words must be words of mingled thanksgiving, humility, and prayer. Of thanks-
giving, for the many blessings vouchsafed to us throughout . . . our corporate labours;
of humility, for our failings and imperfections in the fulfillment of our task; and of
prayer to Almighty God, that the Gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ may
be more clearly and more freshly shown forth to all who shall be readers of this Book.

The preface to editions of the later RSV went on to say:

The Bible is more than a historical document to be preserved. And it is more than
a classic of English literature to be cherished and admired. It is a record of God's
dealing with men, of God's revelation of Himself and His will. It records the life and
work of Him in whom the word of God became flesh and dwelt among men. [The]
Word must not be disguised in phrases that are no longer clear, or hidden under words
that have changed or lost their meaning.

J. Reuben Clark found such professions weak, reserved for the end of the re-
spective prefaces of which they were a part, and more remarkable for what
they did not say than for what they did. Their authors, he seemed to feel,
damned themselves with faint praise of God.
Now we must readily acknowledge that the Revisers were more restrained
in their overt piety than their KJV predecessors, whose eloquent preface con-
tinued at great length. But President Clark made no allowance for the dif-
ference between modern tastes and those of an age of rhetorical flourish. He
seemed to take the worshipful KJV preface at face value, as though it could
with little change be transferred to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
That such a wholesale transfer would have been inapt may be seen by a glance
at what modern standards would judge as the obsequious, almost idolatrous
1611 dedication to the increasingly unpopular and autocratic King James.20
So distressing was James's behavior to the Puritans that his reign became
but a preface to that of Charles I, whose more extreme actions prompted the
great Puritan exodus to New England, then British civil war, and finally his
own execution. Despite such tensions, the age of literary extravagance induced
the Puritans, who were well represented among the Authorized translators, to
support "The Epistle Dedicatory" to King James: "Great and manifold were
the blessings, most dread Sovereign, which Almighty God, the Father of all
mercies, bestowed upon us the people of England, when first he sent Your
Majesty's Royal Person to rule and reign over us." The appearance of "Your
Majesty" was "as of the Sun in his strength, instantly [dispelling] mists . . .
accompanied with peace and tranquillity at home and abroad." "Your very
20
For James's increasing difficulties with his subjects, see Ahlstrom 1:134—35.
36 DIALOGUE: A JOURNAL OF MORMON THOUGHT

name is precious" and Your subjects look to You "as that sanctified Person,
who, under God, is the immediate Author of their true happiness." Similar
effusion was not absent from the Authorized "Translators to the Reader";
J. Reuben Clark was expecting too much if he thought its grandiloquence
should be duplicated by modern scholars.
REPERCUSSIONS

Under careful scrutiny, then, J. Reuben Clark's justifications of the King

James Bible do not fare well. While the various points of excellence of the
Authorized Version ought not be treated lightly, to insist on it as an official
version guarantees significant misunderstanding (or non-understanding) by
ordinary Saints. Moreover, although Clark held his views passionately, he was
literally the first to admit his opinions were personal. The initial words of
Why the King James Version were: "For this book I alone am responsible.
It is not a Church publication."
Yet President Clark held an exceedingly prominent position in Mormon-
dom. Despite his own disavowal, there were inevitably many who believed
his words represented God's opinion on the issues, especially since some other
Church officials actively supported his views. In addition, President Clark was
unusually erudite. Because of his forcefulness, making it seem that to abandon
the King James translation in favor of another was to abandon one's faith, and
perhaps also because no one of influence and competence publicly presented
an alternative view, his book galvanized conservative impulses among the
Saints and quickly acquired a quasi-official aura. Virtually all subsequent
apologies for the Authorized Bible depended primarily on President Clark or
used similar arguments less ably than he (Petersen 1966, 16, 24—25, 44, 52;
9 Sept. 1972, 16; McConkie 1966, 421-23; 1970-74, 1:59-63; 1984; Gon-
zalez 1987, 23-25; Life and Teachings 1978; "Bible Versions" 1952; "Why"
1956; Sperry 1961, 498-99, 546-50; "Which Bible" 1970).
On rare occasions, leaders have offered reasons for continued KJV usage
that Clark did not call upon. Joseph Fielding Smith, for example, suggested
the Authorized Version was retained because it was accepted by most Prot-
estants, providing "common ground for proselyting purposes" (1957-66,
2:207). President Smith's assertion was perfectly true in the 1950s when he
wrote and therefore, quite apart from Clark's reasoning, the KJV was a logical
choice for the Saints if proselyting, rather than scriptural understanding or
scriptural accuracy, was the controlling criterion. However, even if we were
to accept this rationale, it becomes less true with each passing year. By 1979,
when the Church produced its new edition of the Authorized Bible, only
34.8 percent of American homes used the KJV as their primary Bible.21 This
21
Elwell 1979, 48. RSV sales averaged one million copies a year during its first decade
and had risen to total fifty million copies in print by 1981. The RSV has been adapted
for use by Catholics, who also produced the superbly annotated Jerusalem Bible (1966) and,
as their main version in this country, the New American Bible (1970). By 1981, American
sales of the paraphrased Living Bible stood at twenty-five million; the New American
Standard Bible (a conservative revision of the Authorized Version) at fourteen million; both
the Good News Bible (Today's English Version) and the New English Bible at twelve million
 Barlow: Why the King James? 37

is actually an impressive figure and proves that the KJV is still the popular
choice among U.S. Protestants. But its dominance is waning; it no longer
represents "the majority of Protestants." And what of the country's fifty
million Catholics?
In recent years, LDS religious educators have not usually borrowed the
slightly more developed defenses offered contemporarily by the few funda-
mentalist scholars who continue to push the Textus Receptus. Instead, they
have tended to cite J. Reuben Clark or use his logic and to augment his
uniquely Mormon argument that Joseph Smith's modern revelations verify
the accuracy of the KJV.
One teacher compares many passages where he feels modern translations
obscure "doctrines of the Restoration," whereas KJV language "triggers"
them. For instance, the "dispensation of the fulness of times" (Eph. 1:10)
has a very specific Restorationist meaning for most Latter-day Saints. There-
fore, translating the Greek phrase behind it as "when the time is right" or
"when the time fully comes," as some scholars do, mars a proof-text for a
popular Mormon concept and abandons "unique terminology seemingly pre-
ferred by God." 22 This approach, like President Clark's, ignores the fact that
all sorts of popular illusions are based precisely on this process, which allows —
forces — theology to depend on incidental KJV phraseology rather than on
the genuine intent of the original authors or on some other basis.23 As a result
(to stay with the same example), the KJV translation of Ephesians 1:10 helps
confine Mormon thought to an early nineteenth-century dispensational mind-
set popularized by John Nelson Darby of the Plymouth Brethren.24
Another LDS writer uses Joseph Smith's modern revelations to verify the
accuracy of the KJV from a slightly different angle. He notes that the Prophet
translated the Book of Mormon and recorded his own revelations in the idiom
of the KJV. The writer goes on to suggest that this style must be preferred by
each; and the New International Version at three million (a figure that has since grown
dramatically as more evangelicals have adopted it). The New King James Bible, a significant
improvement over the KJV, was issued in 1979, just as the new LDS edition came out. For
recent figures, see Ostling 1981, 62-63.
22
Gonzalez n.d. The notion that the language is "seemingly preferred by God" arises
because KJV language is echoed throughout the Doctrine and Covenants and Book of Mor-
mon— an idea treated fully in Barlow 1988, chapters one and two. Other examples Gonzalez
cites where LDS notions are cemented to the particular phraseology of the KJV include the
idea of a pre-existent "first estate" (KJV Jude 6; Abraham 3:26, 28) rather than a "proper
domain" (New King James Version); the "veil" of the temple (KJV Mark 15:38; D&C
110:1) rather than the "curtain" (RSV) ; and "We have . . . a more sure word of prophecy"
(KJV 2 Peter 1:19; D&C 131:5) rather than "confirms for us the message of the prophets"
(New English Bible).
23
Anthony Hutchinso n (1988) has recently shown how profoundly misleading this
approach has been in the very formation of scripture.
24
Ahlstrom 2 : 2 7 7 - 7 9 . Although the idea of successive divine dispensations began well
before t h e time of Jesus, the modern form of "premillennial dispensationalism" is usually
tied by scholars to Darby. M y own impression is that the idea was too diffuse in Darby's
time to be traced so neatly to h i m as its "effective originator." I n any case, "dispensation"
has a n u m b e r of rich meanings, as a look at a dictionary will suggest; one can have faith
in Joseph Smith's prophetic calling without dividing h u m a n history neatly into prepackaged
epochs in quite t h e way many Mormons a n d fundamentalist Christians do.
38 DIALOGUE: A JOURNAL OF MORMON THOUGHT

God, since Smith's successor prophets have continued to record revelations in

the same idiom. He cites as "obvious illustrations" Doctrine and Covenants
135, 136, and 138 by John Taylor, Brigham Young, and Joseph F. Smith
respectively. Because of this continued use of KJV language, he writes, the
clear "intent is that [all scripture] be woven together as one book" (J. Mc-
Conkie 1987, 126).
This line of thought gives little weight to the probability that Joseph Smith
cast his revelations in KJV idiom because, raised on the KJV, he (uncon-
sciously?) equated it with religious terminology. But he did the same thing
with early accounts of his first vision, yet greatly lessened the tendency in later
accounts (particularly the one now canonized), as his confidence in his pro-
phetic calling grew (Barlow 1988, Ch. 1). And Brigham Young, who thought
his sermons "as good scripture as . . . this Bible," did not preach in KJV idiom.
Furthermore, of the three "obvious illustrations" cited to show the necessary
continuance of King James English, only D&C 136 is clearly created in the
image of the KJV. Section 138 uses transitional language, retaining heavy
vestiges of Elizabethan style because the section is an inspired commentary on
and expansion of certain KJV passages. But the section itself is not unambigu-
ously in KJV form. Section 135 is manifestly not in Jacobean idiom; it retains
only slight traces of the KJV simply because of its biblical subject matter.
The work of such teachers, sincere though it is, has magnified misconcep-
tions among a younger generation of Latter-day Saints. Thus, the inertia of
tradition and the continued absence of a competent public alternative to the
personal opinions of J. Reuben Clark, have all helped support the increasingly
unopposed reign of the King James Bible in Mormondom. The 1979 publica-
tion of an "official" LDS edition of the KJV, widely promoted by Church
officials and diverse Mormon organizations, has ensured the dominance of this
version for the indefinite future. This publication in essence completed the
metamorphosis of the King James Bible from the common into the official ver-
sion among English-speaking Latter-day Saints.25
As the Church approaches the twenty-first century, it has settled on an
early seventeenth-century translation as its official Bible. Prospects for immedi-
ate change seem discouraging. But we must remember that Mormon attitudes
toward the KJV have evolved in concert with historical processes that continue
25
Of course, this metamorphosis was in its last stages by the early 1970s. By then the
primacy of the KJV was assumed by most Saints. The fact that it was President Harold B.
Lee (long a protege of J. Reuben Clark) who initiated the new Bible project probably
insured that none but the King James Version was seriously considered (Matthews 1982,
388). For Elder Lee's relationship with President Clark, see Quinn 1983, 57, 88.
The KJV's official stature in contemporary Mormonism is not, of course, the LDS
equivalent of a Tridentine censorship of other versions, a prohibition that has never existed
in Mormon history. Individual teachers and leaders continue to make use of various versions,
and the KJV is official only for English. Several dozen Bibles in foreign languages are
approved for missionary and other uses (Policies 1981). It is quite possible that Mormon
growth in non-English-speaking countries will foster among Church authorities a greater
awareness of the KJV's limitations. In 1980, for example (and despite Joseph Smith's praise
of what was probably Luther's translation of the German Bible), the Church adopted the
Uniform Translation as its official Bible for German-speaking Saints. Unlike the KJV and
Luther's version, the Uniform Translation is in contemporary idiom and takes advantage of
recent scholarship.
 Barlow: Why the King James? 39

to unfold. Since its inception, Mormonism has time and again proved its
resilience and dynamism by creatively adapting to the developments of the
modern world. As they look toward the future, informed Saints may be justi-
fied in having faith that the present state of affairs is but a way station, not a
final resting place.26
APPENDIX
J. Reuben Clark gave the bulk of his attention to the revisions that culmi-
nated in the RSV, and he of course did not have access to translations that
appeared after his death. However, since he argued that the KJV is singularly
loyal to the notion of the divine stature of Jesus, and since others of influence
have subsequently depended on his logic, it seems worthwhile to include in the
comparison below several modern versions published after Clark last wrote.
The chart notes places in the New Testament where the Greek can possibly
(either by the right choice of textual witnesses or by the appropriate grammati-
cal interpretation) be construed to specifically call Jesus "God." I have
adapted the comparison from Victor Perry, "Problem Passages of the New
Testament in Some Modern Translations: Does the New Testament Call Jesus
God?" (The Expository Times 87 [1975-76]: 214-15). An " X " means the
version in question directly ascribes deity to Jesus; an "0" means it does not.
"Mg."= marginal reading"; NEB = New English Bible; NIV = New Interna-
tional Version; NWT=New World Translation (Jehovah's Witnesses).
II II
JN. JN. Acts Rom. Thess. Titus Heb. Pet.
1:1 1:18 20:28 9:5 1:12 2:13 1:8 1:1
KJV X 0 X X 0 0 X 0
RV X 0 X X 0 X X
RVmg. X 0 0 0 0
RSV X 0 0 0 0 X X
RSV mg. X 0 X 0 0 0
NEB X 0 0 0 0 X X X
NEB mg. X 0 X 0 0
Moffatt 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 X
Goodspeed 0 0 X 0 0 X 0 X
NIV X X X X 0 X X X
NIV mg. 0 0 0 X
NWT 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
26
Of various other English translations, the Revised Standard Version is the most widely
accepted for scholarly use. It deliberately remains in the King James tradition but adapts
to modern knowledge where necessary. The New International Version, produced by con-
servative evangelical scholars, is a good alternative. The New English Bible, though it tends
to overtranslate here and there by rendering what is ambiguous in the original languages as
unambiguous in English, is a delightful, readable production, also based on good scholarship.
In my view, the very least the Church should do — the most conservative action it could take
and still maintain a position of responsible attachment to modern realities — is to consider
adopting the New King James Version, published in 1979. Yet in truth the New King James,
like the old, is hobbled by dependence on what even conservative scholars acknowledge are
outdated manuscripts.
40 DIALOGUE: A JOURNAL OF MORMON THOUGHT

The fact and nature of Jesus' divinity were complex issues in the earliest Chris-
tian centuries, but the results of the comparison above suggest the hollowness
of the assertion that the KJV is the champion defender of this divinity and that
the revisions systematically obliterate it. Only the Jehovah's Witnesses' NWT
omits all specific references to Jesus' deity. Even Moffatt and Goodspeed,
whose liberal propensities have been well publicized by opponents, manage one
and three references respectively. The KJV accepts only four of the eight pos-
sibilities, the same number as the RSV and NEB. The RV, which so bothered
Clark, accepts six such references, two more than the KJV. The evangelical
NIV, translated not from the Textus Receptus but from an eclectic Greek
text, has the highest incidence of passages suggesting a deified Jesus.

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